Stamp Albums Vs Vario Sheets

This thread is particularly relevant to my problem with the Transportaion and Prominent American series.
Both appear in several places, were issued piecemeal at different times, and need to be (in my opinion) consolidated as two distinct groups.
Having seen the images I've concluded that the best solution for me will be to use Scott National blank pages to concentrate the different partial groups.
But then, I'll have to modify the original album pages that provide space for the partial groups of these series that appear in several different places.

Or to take the transportation coils in another organizational direction, ignore the 4 current groupings of catalog numbers. But rather than condensing to 2 groups, why not expand it to 6? Specifically by rate periods during the use of the series. The first transportation coils were issued when the first class rate was 18 cents, then progressing to 20, 22, 25, 29, and 32, with similar changes to the second ounce rate, postcards, bulk, presort, etc. The Prominent American series can be similarly split more finely ... to tell the story of the rate periods which the series covered.

Varios, organized by year of issue. Let's you see the evolution of postal rates and how that affected longer definitive series like Great Americans and Transport Coils. And using Varios makes it easier to work in varieties not pictured in a pre-printed album (shades, tagging, etc).

But we all have to struggle to find the system that works the best, and it often takes several experiments before you reach the Goldilocks moment of "Just Right" for the way you collect.

I actually like both. For my collection of Norman Rockwell covers the VARIOS pages work best by showing two cover per side.

I also like the pages from White Ace for specialized collection but have turn away from their set up except their pages have spaces for a single, block of 4 and a plate block. So after buying a couple of sets from them I have gotten their theme blanks (i.e. Americana and United States Commemoratives) to create my own.

For the 1938 Presidential series I use the US Commemoratives to mount a FDC, a plate block and a description for each stamp in the series, Here is a sample of one page.

This is a fascinating old thread.

I have also struggled with this question, and use both printed albums and stock pages.
The biggest objection I have to stock pages is the lint, dust, paper, and who knows what
else they seem to attract after awhile... Every one of you knows this, but nobody mentioned it.
These negative aspects can be minimized by using quality binders with dust cases, such as
Lighthouse Vario F.

The Vario Plus pages, of course, are the top of the line, but their very stiffness makes
them sometimes difficult to work with, and they are expensive compared to cheaper alternatives.
I've noticed that the latest craze in stock sheets is a brand called "Anchor," which is much
cheaper than Vario alternatives. I sincerely doubt the Anchor claims about safety for long term
storage. But, I could be wrong about that.

So many choices, so little time! Time, that's always the rub...

John

I was using Vario sytem for years and now I am thinking to shift to Album page system since it contains more information and it looks more presentable. However, the cost of the pre prepared pages with the mounts is bit expensive.

I view albums as the "frame" and Vario and other stockbooks as the Easel. In order to enjoy the stamps, you can't have too many on a single page, otherwise they just blur into one another. My collection is still in the accumulation stage so it's in stock books/pages. Ultimately I will put it in albums. I still have my boyhood collection which my mother and grandmother helped me with, that will go into a separate album that I will create the pages for. As so many folks have said, there are no rules enjoy your collection as you see fit.

I actually use Vario sheets to store everything. Then I create digital albums using Libreoffice Draw and Steiner sheets. When I need a custom page, I just clone a Steiner page and start moving things around. I also take the scans I used to make the digital album and upload copies to Smugmug, so I can whip out my phone and look at any stamp I own.